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By now, most folks know that President Barack Obama – actually the secretary of Homeland Security – issued certain orders in November of last year that allowed about 5 million people who were in the country illegally to stay here.

If he had stopped there, then this column might have been about the relative merits (or demerits) of doing that. However, he also did several other things, including giving those same people the right to work. That is something else entirely.

President Barack Obama has said this will be a year of action. This scares me more than watching a horror film with the lights turned off.

Simply because when the government takes action the people are usually the ones being acted upon.

If you are one of the 33 million people with their heads buried in a chip bowl or melting cheese on everything in the house including the cat, you may have missed the laundry list of new taxes that just came into effect.

With a new session that began Jan. 13, the opportunities for positive reforms to our system of governance, tax structure and personal freedoms should be plentiful.

And while there are some strong reforms on the table this year, it’s the weak refoms – and even some measures that would take us backward – that will likely take center stage if citizens don’t keep a watchful eye on their lawmakers.

These were the words of outrage of freshman S.C. Legislator Cezar McKnight when discussing the scandal of the $123 million in fines the state has paid for its 25-year failure to comply with federal law with regard to deadbeat dads.

The question is, can this young reformer do something about this, or will politics as usual in South Carolina prevail?

I read with interest the story in the The Lancaster News about Sheriff Barry Faile’s proposal for a fee district for Indian Land to fund more deputies here.

I have some questions:

Why would we levy a fee on just Indian Land, and not shift the existing deputies more? The article states that the city of Lancaster has “a little over 10,000 people over six miles, with more than 38 sworn officers.”

With a new session that began Tuesday, Jan. 13, the opportunities for positive reforms to our system of governance, tax structure and personal freedoms should be

plentiful.

And while there are some strong reforms on the table this year, it’s the weak refoms – and even some measures that would take us backward – that will likely take center stage if citizens don’t keep a watchful eye on their lawmakers.

If you’d like to send your child to a different school next year, now’s the time to start the process of researching your options.

As South Carolina prepares to commemorate National School Choice Week this month at 120 events across the state, and nearly 11,000 events nationwide, many parents will begin evaluating the educational opportunities that are available for their children.

People often question why I never mention my brothers and sisters by name in my column. My sister Martha, an English major with a master’s, proofs what I write and has the authority to remove names to protect the guilty.

It could be because I served three years in the pen and then a year’s probation on a work farm learning various trades. At age 4, I was paroled to be a free-range farm child. I would have preferred to serve more time in the pen, but my younger sister was born Feb. 25, just eight days before my third birthday.